"I Knew Ward Cleaver. Ward Cleaver was a Friend of Mine. You, Sir, are no Ward Cleaver."

Thank the gods I have crimefighting.

There was a time, after floundering through my twenties from job to job and struggling to find much success at anything, that I embraced the comforting idea that I had been born to be a father. It was my calling, I decided. Protecting, nurturing, and caring for my son would – I was certain – come as naturally to me as drafting did to Frank Lloyd Wright. Just as Ted Williams was a hitter, I would be a father.

The sentiment explained my restlessness at work, since I had no more business pushing pencils than Julia Child had digging ditches, right? I gripped the idea and let it pull me through the workweeks like a rescue rope in a flooded river. I had purpose now; meaning, and motivation.

Reality has been rudely unaccommodating of my expectations. I may be Gretzky in my mind, but fatherhood is more oil painting than ice hockey.

Now, I love my son, and fiercely. I stare at him in my wife’s arms and I know that I would charge the Maginot Line armed with sparklers if that’s what it took to protect him. But that is where he is happiest: in her arms; and the feeling is fairly mutual. I’m frustrated faster than I should be; I’m stymied by his fussing; I’m bored by his squirming. Desperately I want to live up to Heathcliff Huxtable, but each successive evening proves me more Al Bundy. Of course I will never give up, and I’m certain a competent fatherhood will settle in on me just as it has on other men for thousands of years. Still, it would have been nice to be a natural.

So, as I said, thank the gods I have crimefighting. Without that clear and fulfilling calling, I might be left to wonder what the hell I’m here for after all...